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Chaplains are an integral part of mental health treatment within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and over the past decade, efforts have been made to integrate chaplain services into behavioral health treatment. One unique duty of chaplains is to conduct spiritual assessments, which are characterized as collaborative discussions with veterans to understand their overall religious and belief system, identify spiritual injuries, and how to integrate one's spiritual values into medical care. Although spiritual assessments in Veterans Affairs Medical Centers have evolved throughout the years to adopt a more structured approach, spiritual assessments can vary depending on site, clinical setting, and medical center. The present study sought to examine chaplains' perspectives on standardizing spiritual assessments and incorporating empirically validated measures into the assessments. Thematic analysis was conducted on two focus groups of chaplains from a large VHA medical center. Overall, chaplains appeared interested in standardizing spiritual assessments, with an expressed desire to maintain their current conversational format. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Prior research has demonstrated that angry participants exhibit biased threat detection whereby they are more likely to misidentify neutral objects as guns. Yet, it is unclear whether independent components of anger, such as conceptual knowledge about anger or the affective features of an anger instance, could lead to altered bias alone. Consistent with constructionist theories of emotion, the present set of two experiments demonstrates that threat-detection bias only differs significantly between participants in an emergent-anger condition, who had engaged both components of anger (i.e., conceptual knowledge of anger and negative, high arousal affect), and participants in a control condition, who had engaged neither. Study 2 demonstrates that this pattern of findings also extends to another threat-relevant emotional state (i.e., fear). Implications for studying anger and fear, and emotions more generally, as constructed mental experiences are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Gradient mapping is an important technique to summarize high dimensional biological features as low dimensional manifold representations in exploring brain structure-function relationships at various levels of the cerebral cortex. While recent studies have characterized the major gradients of functional connectivity in several brain structures using this technique, very few have systematically examined the correspondence of such gradients across structures under a common systems-level framework. Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging, here we show that the organizing principles of the isocortex, and those of the cerebellum and hippocampus in relation to the isocortex, can be described using two common functional gradients. We suggest that the similarity in functional connectivity gradients across these structures can be meaningfully interpreted within a common computational framework based on the principles of predictive processing. The present results, and the specific hypotheses that they suggest, represent an important step toward an integrative account of brain function.

BACKGROUND In the veteran community, chronic pain is particularly prevalent and often debilitating. Until recently, veterans with chronic pain were offered primarily pharmacological intervention options, which rarely suffice and can also have negative health consequences. To better address chronic pain in veterans, the Veterans Health Administration has invested in novel, nonpharmacological behavior interventions that target both pain management and chronic pain–related functional issues. One approach, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for chronic pain, is supported by decades of efficacy evidence for improving pain outcomes; however, ACT can be difficult to obtain owing to issues such as a lack of trained therapists or veterans having difficulty committing to the time and resources needed for the full clinician-led ACT protocol. Given the strong ACT evidence base combined with access limitations, we set out to develop and evaluate Veteran ACT for Chronic Pain (VACT-CP), an online program guided by an embodied conversational agent to improve pain management and functioning. OBJECTIVE The aims of this study are to develop, iteratively refine, and then conduct a pilot feasibility randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a VACT-CP group (n=20) versus a waitlist and treatment-as-usual control group (n=20). METHODS This research project includes 3 phases. In phase 1, our research team consulted with pain and virtual care experts, developed the preliminary VACT-CP online program, and conducted interviews with providers to obtain their feedback on the intervention. In phase 2, we incorporated feedback from phase 1 into the VACT-CP program and completed initial usability testing with veterans with chronic pain. In phase 3, we are conducting a small pilot feasibility RCT, with the primary outcome being assessment of usability of the VACT-CP system. RESULTS This study is currently in phase 3; recruitment for the RCT began in April 2022 and is expected to continue through April 2023. Data collection is expected to be completed by October 2023, with full data analysis completed by late 2023. CONCLUSIONS The findings from this research project will provide information on the usability of the VACT-CP intervention, as well as secondary outcomes related to treatment satisfaction, pain outcomes (pain-related daily functioning and pain severity), ACT processes (pain acceptance, behavioral avoidance, and valued living), and mental and physical functioning. CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03655132; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03655132 INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT DERR1-10.2196/45887

The periaqueductal grey (PAG) is a small midbrain structure that surrounds the cerebral aqueduct, regulates brain–body communication, and is often studied for its role in “fight-or-flight” defense responses. We used ultra-high field 7-Tesla fMRI to resolve the PAG in humans and distinguish it from the cerebral aqueduct, examining itsin vivofunction in humans during a working memory task (N = 87)—i.e., a setting that required physiological mobilization, but no “threat”. During both low and moderate task-elicited cognitive demand, we observed BOLD signal intensity increases in bilateral ventrolateral PAG (vlPAG), consistent with the columnar organization of PAG function identified in non-human animal research. Changes in physiological activity during the task (phasic skin conductance response (SCR) amplitudes, cardiac interbeat interval, respiratory rate) were correlated with PAG BOLD estimates across subjects, and showed some evidence of spatial organization within the PAG, but no spatial organization overlapping with the task-elicited increase in bilateral vlPAG. These findings suggest that the PAG coordinates and regulates bodily activity, even in the absence of threat.

The superior colliculus is often studied for its role in visually guided behaviors, but research in non-human animals indicates it is a midbrain hub for processing sensory information from multiple domains, including interoception (which is associated with affect). We used ultra-high field 7-Tesla fMRI to extend this work to humans, modeling superior colliculus BOLD signal intensity during visual or somatosensory stimulation (N = 40 in each sensory modality), both under aversive and neutral affective intensity. As hypothesized, the superior colliculus showed increased BOLD signal intensity in the dorsal and ventral subregions during visual and somatosensory stimulation, respectively. The entire superior colliculus also showed increased BOLD signal intensity during aversive compared to neural conditions. The superior colliculus BOLD signal intensity also correlated with a preregistered set of brain regions involved in visual, somatosensory, and interoceptive processing.

ImportanceFew evidence-based treatments are available for Gulf War illness (GWI). Behavioral treatments that target factors known to maintain the disability from GWI, such as problem-solving impairment, may be beneficial. Problem-solving treatment (PST) targets problem-solving impairment and is an evidence-based treatment for other conditions.ObjectiveTo examine the efficacy of PST to reduce disability, problem-solving impairment, and physical symptoms in GWI.Design, Setting, and ParticipantsThis multicenter randomized clinical trial conducted in the US Department of Veterans Affairs compared PST with health education in a volunteer sample of 511 Gulf War veterans with GWI and disability (January 1, 2015, to September 1, 2019); outcomes were assessed at 12 weeks and 6 months. Statistical analysis was conducted between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2020.InterventionsProblem-solving treatment taught skills to improve problem-solving. Health education provided didactic health information. Both were delivered by telephone weekly for 12 weeks.Main Outcomes and MeasuresThe primary outcome was reduction from baseline to 12 weeks in self-report of disability (World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule). Secondary outcomes were reductions in self-report of problem-solving impairment and objective problem-solving. Exploratory outcomes were reductions in pain, pain disability, and fatigue.ResultsA total of 268 veterans (mean [SD] age, 52.9 [7.3] years; 88.4% male; 66.8% White) were randomized to PST (n = 135) or health education (n = 133). Most participants completed all 12 sessions of PST (114 of 135 [84.4%]) and health education (120 of 133 [90.2%]). No difference was found between groups in reductions in disability at the end of treatment. Results suggested that PST reduced problem-solving impairment (moderate effect, 0.42; P = .01) and disability at 6 months (moderate effect, 0.39; P = .06) compared with health education.Conclusions and RelevanceIn this randomized clinical trial of the efficacy of PST for GWI, no difference was found between groups in reduction in disability at 12 weeks. Problem-solving treatment had high adherence and reduced problem-solving impairment and potentially reduced disability at 6 months compared with health education. These findings should be confirmed in future studies.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02161133

We examined the superior colliculus (SC) with ultra-high resolution 7-Tesla fMRI during an N-back working memory task. We observed both increased BOLD signal intensity and functional connectivity that followed a layer-dependent pattern predicted from anatomical connections between SC and other brain structures important for visual processing, motor control, and executive function. Our results highlight a role for the human SC in cognitive functions that usually associated with the cerebral cortex.

Sleep disturbances, including chronic insomnia and sleep apnea, are major concerns for US veterans, with rising rates and detrimental effects on physical, mental, and social well-being. Sleep disturbances in veterans are also underdiagnosed and undertreated for reasons that include limited sleep clinician availability, long wait times, and the time commitment for treatment. Greater use of sleep health information technologies could improve access to assessment and treatment of sleep disturbances. However, the assessment of acceptance of these technologies among veterans is still ongoing. This mixed-method study combines data from two separate but similar randomized controlled trials to assess acceptance of sleep health information technologies for veterans with chronic insomnia. Sleep health information technologies included in these trials were the following: (1) a WatchPAT sleep monitor for home-based sleep assessment, including detection of sleep apnea, and (2) the VA mobile app Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-i Coach), which supports self-management of insomnia. The combined sample of 37 veterans receiving care within one New England VA medical center completed a six-week trial using both health information technology tools. Participants completed a survey and interview at the end of the 6 weeks. Overall, participants found the tools acceptable, easy to use, and useful and reported they would use them in the future. Thus, these sleep health information technologies appear to provide an acceptable remote option for assessing and managing sleep issues for veterans. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02392000; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02392000 and ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03305354; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03305354.

The theory of constructed emotion is a systems neuroscience approach to understanding the nature of emotion. It is also a general theoretical framework to guide hypothesis generation for how actions and experiences are constructed as the brain continually anticipates metabolic needs and attempts to meet those needs before they arise (termed allostasis). In this review, we introduce this framework and hypothesize that allostatic dysregulation is a trans-disorder vulnerability for mental and physical illness. We then review published findings consistent with the hypothesis that several symptoms in major depressive disorder (MDD), such as fatigue, distress, context insensitivity, reward insensitivity, and motor retardation, are associated with persistent problems in energy regulation. Our approach transforms the current understanding of MDD as resulting from enhanced emotional reactivity combined with reduced cognitive control and, in doing so, offers novel hypotheses regarding the development, progression, treatment, and prevention of MDD.

We review recent work on functions of interoceptive processing, by which the nervous system anticipates, senses, and integrates signals originating from the body. We focus on several exemplar functions of interoception, including energy regulation (ingestion and excretion), memory, affective and emotional experience, and the psychological sense of self. We emphasize two themes across these functions. First, the anatomy of interoceptive afferents makes it difficult to manipulate or directly measure interoceptive signaling in humans. Second, recent evidence shows that multimodal integration occurs across interoceptive modalities, and between interoceptive and exteroceptive modalities. Whereas exteroceptive multimodal integration has been relatively extensively studied, fundamental questions remain regarding multimodal integration that involves interoceptive modalities, and future empirical work is required to better understand how and where multimodal interoceptive integration occurs.

Machine learning methods provide powerful tools to map physical measurements to scientific categories. But are such methods suitable for discovering the ground truth about psychological categories? We use the science of emotion as a test case to explore this question. In studies of emotion, researchers use supervised classifiers, guided by emotion labels, to attempt to discover biomarkers in the brain or body for the corresponding emotion categories. This practice relies on the assumption that the labels refer to objective categories that can be discovered. Here, we critically examine this approach across three distinct datasets collected during emotional episodes-measuring the human brain, body, and subjective experience-and compare supervised classification solutions with those from unsupervised clustering in which no labels are assigned to the data. We conclude with a set of recommendations to guide researchers towards meaningful, data-driven discoveries in the science of emotion and beyond. ispartof: SCIENTIFIC REPORTS vol:10 issue:1 ispartof: location:England status: published

Is there a universal mapping of physiology to emotion, or do these mappings vary substantially by person or situation? Psychologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists have debated this question for decades. Most previous studies have focused on differentiating emotions on the basis of accompanying autonomic responses using analytical approaches that often assume within-category homogeneity. In the present study, we took an alternative approach to this question. We determined the extent to which the relationship between subjective experience and autonomic reactivity generalizes across or depends upon the individual and situation for instances of a single emotion category, specifically, fear. Electrodermal activity and cardiac activity - two autonomic measures that are often assumed to show robust relationships with instances of fear - were recorded while participants reported fear experience in response to dozens of fear-evoking videos related to three distinct situations: spiders, heights, and social encounters. We formally translated assumptions from diverse theoretical models into a common framework for model comparison analyses. Results exceedingly favored a model that assumed situation-dependency in the relationship between fear experience and autonomic reactivity, with subject variance also significant, but constrained by situation. Models that assumed generalization only across situations or individuals performed much worse by comparison. These results call into question the assumption of generalizability of autonomic-subjective mappings across instances of fear, such as in translational research from non-human animals to humans, and suggest the benefits of adopting a situated approach to understanding the autonomic correlates of fear experience.

The brain regulates the body by anticipating its needs and attempting to meet them before they arise – a process called allostasis. Allostasis requires a model of the changing sensory conditions within the body, a process called interoception. In this paper, we examine how interoception may provide performance feedback for allostasis. We suggest studying allostasis in terms of control theory, reviewing control theory’s applications to related issues in physiology, motor control, and decision making. We synthesize these by relating them to the important properties of allostatic regulation as a control problem. We then sketch a novel formalism for how the brain might perform allostatic control of the viscera by analogy to skeletomotor control, including a mathematical view on how interoception acts as performance feedback for allostasis. Finally, we suggest ways to test implications of our hypotheses.

Your brain keeps you alive and well by running a metabolic “budget” for your body. Our authors, who co-direct the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory at Northeastern University and Massachusetts General Hospital, explain how these budgetary activities, and the sensations they create inside your body, suggest surprising connections between brain, mind, body, and world.

© 2021 John Wiley & Sons LtdBackground: Amplified muscle activity in reaction to daily life stressors might explain chronic pain in temporomandibular disorder (TMD). Objectives: To assess whether patients with myofascial TMD pain (MFP) react to standardised stressors with greater masticatory muscle activity than demographically matched controls. Methods: A total of 124 female MFP patients and 46 demographically matched and pain-free controls rated distress while performing a series of standardised stress-reactivity tasks (viz., cold pressor test, mental arithmetic test, speech stressor test and reaction time/startle response test) as well as a vanilla baseline control task. Blood pressure was measured before and after each task, and electromyographic (EMG) activity was continuously recorded over the jaw-closing muscles and several non-masticatory muscles during each task. Linear mixed model analyses were used to test the hypothesis that case status, stress-reactivity task and muscle recording site influenced EMG activity. Results: Stress induction was successful, as evidenced by distress ratings and blood pressure measurements that were significantly elevated during performance of the stress tasks. Participants reported that some of the tasks were stressful in a way that resembled stressors experienced in their daily lives. Elevated muscle activity could be confirmed only for the reaction time/startle response task, where mean EMG activity was elevated more in cases than in controls, specifically in the jaw-closing muscles. Conclusion: These data could not provide clear support for the theory that psychological stressors produce a differential increase in masticatory muscle activity in MFP patients than pain-free controls.

Predictive processing is emerging as a common computational hypothesis to account for diverse psychological functions subserved by a brain, providing a systems-level framework for characterizing structure-function relationships of its distinct substructures. Here, we contribute to this framework by examining gradients of functional connectivity as a low dimensional spatial representation of functional variation in the brain and demonstrating their computational implications for predictive processing. Specifically, we investigated functional connectivity gradients in the cerebral cortex, the cerebellum, and the hippocampus using resting-state functional MRI data collected from large samples of healthy young adults. We then evaluated the degree to which these structures share common principles of functional organization by assessing the correspondence of their gradients. We show that the organizing principles of these structures primarily follow two functional gradients consistent with the existing hierarchical accounts of predictive processing: A model-error gradient that describes the flow of prediction and prediction error signals, and a model-precision gradient that differentiates regions involved in the representation and attentional modulation of such signals in the cerebral cortex. Using these gradients, we also demonstrated triangulation of functional connectivity involving distinct subregions of the three structures, which allows characterization of distinct ways in which these structures functionally interact with each other, possibly subserving unique and complementary aspects of predictive processing. These findings support the viability of computational hypotheses about the functional relationships between the cerebral cortex, the cerebellum, and the hippocampus that may be instrumental for understanding the brain’s dynamics within its large-scale predictive architecture.

John Cacioppo and colleagues’ Somatovisceral Afference Model of Emotion (SAME) highlighted the importance of interoception in emotional experience. Here we compare how the SAME and the more recent Theory of Constructed Emotion (TCE) view the role of interoceptive signals in creating emotional experiences. We describe the characteristics of touch sensations that are carried by thin, unmyelinated fibers called C-tactile afferents (CTs) to the posterior insula, and are thus deemed interoceptive despite their typically social (external) origin. We explore how this social interoceptive input might contribute to the emotion-related effects of social touch more generally, and speculate that all social touch, with or without CT afferent stimulation, can directly influence allostasis, or the predictive regulation of short- and long-term energy resources required by the body. Finally, we describe several features of CT-optimal touch that make it a potentially useful tool to help illuminate basic interoceptive mechanisms, emotion-related phenomena, and disorders involving atypical affect or somatosensation. These proposed ideas demonstrate the long intellectual reach of John Cacioppo and Gary Berntson’s highly productive scientific collaboration, which was formative for the fields of social neuroscience, social psychophysiology, and affective neuroscience.

Medically unexplained syndromes (MUS) are both prevalent and disabling. While illness beliefs and behaviors are thought to maintain MUS-related disability, little is known about which specific behavioral responses to MUS are related to disability or the way in which beliefs and behaviors interact to impact functioning. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between illness beliefs and disability among patients with MUS, and assess the extent to which behaviors mediate this relationship. The study examined data from the baseline assessment of a multi-site randomized controlled trial (RCT). Participants were 248 veterans with MUS. Illness beliefs, behavioral responses to illness, and disability were assessed through self-report questionnaire. Data were analyzed using mediation analysis. Threat-related beliefs predicted greater disability through decreased activity and increased practical support seeking. Protective beliefs predicted less disability through reductions in all-or-nothing behavior and limiting behavior. These outcomes suggest that all-or-nothing behavior, limiting behavior, and practical support seeking are important in the perpetuation of disability among those with MUS. This has implications for improving MUS treatment by highlighting potential treatment targets. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02161133

We present evidence for the affective realism hypothesis, that incidental affect is a key ingredient in an individual's experience of the world. In three studies, we used an interocular suppression technique (continuous flash suppression [CFS]) to present smiling, scowling, or neutral faces suppressed from conscious visual awareness while consciously perceived neutral faces were presented at three different timing intervals: 150 ms before, 150 ms after, and concurrent with the suppressed affective faces (Studies 1 and 3) or at timing intervals of 100 ms (Study 2). Results for all three studies revealed that consciously perceived neutral faces were experienced significantly more positively (e.g., as more trustworthy) when concurrently paired with suppressed smiling faces than when concurrently paired with suppressed scowling faces; there was no effect of suppressed affective faces on first impressions in the other timing conditions. This pattern of results is consistent with the affective realism hypothesis but inconsistent with both affective misattribution and affective priming interpretations. Incidental affect must be meaningfully contiguous in time with the target stimulus to be experienced as a property of the target. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Individuals differ in their ability to create instances of emotion that are precise and context-specific. This skill - referred to as emotional granularity or emotion differentiation - is associated with positive mental health outcomes. To date, however, little work has examined whether and how emotional granularity might be increased. Emotional granularity is typically measured using data from experience sampling studies, in which participants are prompted to report on their emotional experiences multiple times per day, across multiple days. This measurement approach allows researchers to examine patterns of responses over time using real-world events. Recent work suggests that experience sampling itself may facilitate increases in emotional granularity in depressed individuals, such that it may serve both empirical and interventional functions. We replicated and extended these findings in healthy adults, using data from an intensive ambulatory assessment study including experience sampling, peripheral physiological monitoring, and end-of-day diaries. We also identified factors that might distinguish individuals who showed larger increases over the course of experience sampling and examined the extent of the impact of these factors. We found that increases in emotional granularity over time were facilitated by methodological factors, such as number of experience sampling prompts responded to per day, as well as individual factors, such as resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia. These results provide support for the use of experience sampling methods to improve emotional granularity, raise questions about the boundary conditions of this effect, and have implications for the conceptualization of emotional granularity and its relationship with emotional health. ispartof: FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY vol:12 ispartof: location:Switzerland status: published

BACKGROUND Insomnia is a prevalent and debilitating disorder among veterans. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTI) can be effective for treating insomnia, although many cannot access this care. Technology-based solutions and lifestyle changes, such as physical activity (PA), offer affordable and accessible self-management alternatives to in-person CBTI. OBJECTIVE This study aims to extend and replicate prior pilot work to examine whether the use of a mobile app for CBTI (cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia coach app [CBT-i Coach]) improves subjective and objective sleep outcomes. This study also aims to investigate whether the use of the CBT-i Coach app with adjunctive PA improves sleep outcomes more than CBT-i Coach alone. METHODS A total of 33 veterans (mean age 37.61 years, SD 9.35 years) reporting chronic insomnia were randomized to use either the CBT-i Coach app alone or the CBT-i Coach app with a PA intervention over 6 weeks, with outcome measures of objective and subjective sleep at pre- and posttreatment. RESULTS Although the PA manipulation was unsuccessful, both groups of veterans using the CBT-i Coach app showed significant improvement from baseline to postintervention on insomnia (PPP=.002). Improvements in subjective sleep outcomes were similar in those with and without posttraumatic stress disorder and mild-to-moderate sleep apnea. We also observed a significant but modest increase in objective sleep efficiency (P=.02). CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that the use of a mobile app–delivered CBTI is feasible and beneficial for improving sleep outcomes in veterans with insomnia, including those with comorbid conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder or mild-to-moderate sleep apnea. CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03305354; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03305354

Commercially available consumer electronics in (smartwatches and wearable biosensors) are increasingly enabling acquisition of peripheral physiological and physical activity data inside and outside of laboratory settings. However, there is scant literature available for selecting and assessing the suitability of these novel devices for scientific use. To overcome this limitation, the current paper offers a framework to aid researchers in choosing and evaluating wearable technologies for use in empirical research. Our seven-step framework includes: (1) identifying signals of interest; (2) characterizing intended use cases; (3) identifying study-specific pragmatic needs; (4) selecting devices for evaluation; (5) establishing an assessment procedure; (6) performing qualitative and quantitative analyses on resulting data; and, if desired, (7) conducting power analyses to determine sample size needed to more rigorously compare performance across devices. We illustrate the application of the framework by comparing electrodermal, cardiovascular, and accelerometry data from a variety of commercial wireless sensors (Affectiva Q, Empatica E3, Empatica E4, Actiwave Cardio, Shimmer) relative to a well-validated, wired MindWare laboratory system. Our evaluations are performed in two studies (N = 10, N = 11) involving psychometrically sound, standardized tasks that include physical activity and affect induction. After applying our framework to this data, we conclude that only some commercially available consumer devices for physiological measurement are capable of wirelessly measuring peripheral physiological and physical activity data of sufficient quality for scientific use cases. Thus, the framework appears to be beneficial at suggesting steps for conducting more systematic, transparent, and rigorous evaluations of mobile physiological devices prior to deployment in studies.

To study racial/ethnic differences in the utilization of low-dose computerized tomography (LDCT) scan for lung cancer among adult smokers. Cross-sectional data (n=2,640) of adults aged 55-74, were from the 2017 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, Lung Cancer Screening module. Weighted, multivariable logistic regression was conducted. Most, 70.9%, were White and 52.2% male. About 16.0 % reported receiving LDCT scan in the past 12 months, 12.0% of Blacks and 17.4% of Whites. More Whites (55.0%) had ≥30 pack-years smoking history than Blacks (20%). Blacks had lower odds, .52 (CI: 0.28-0.96) of receiving LDCT scan than Whites. The odds of receiving LDCT scan were higher for those who were male, who tried to quit smoking in the past year, and for those with more education, health insurance, high blood pressure, lung disease, or cancer history (other than skin or lung cancer). This study suggests racial differences in the use of LDCT scan.

Emotional granularity describes the ability to create emotional experiences that are precise and context-specific. Despite growing evidence of a link between emotional granularity and mental health, the physiological correlates of granularity have been under-investigated. This study explored the relationship between granularity and cardiorespiratory physiological activity in everyday life, with particular reference to the role of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), an estimate of vagal influence on the heart often associated with positive mental and physical health outcomes. Participants completed a physiologically triggered experience-sampling protocol including ambulatory recording of electrocardiogram, impedance cardiogram, movement, and posture. At each prompt, participants generated emotion labels to describe their current experience. In an end-of-day survey, participants elaborated on each prompt by rating the intensity of their experience on a standard set of emotion adjectives. Consistent with our hypotheses, individuals with higher granularity exhibited a larger number of distinct patterns of physiological activity during seated rest, and more situationally precise patterns of activity during emotional events: granularity was positively correlated with the number of clusters of cardiorespiratory physiological activity discovered in seated rest data, as well as with the performance of classifiers trained on event-related changes in physiological activity. Granularity was also positively associated with RSA during seated rest periods, although this relationship did not reach significance in this sample. These findings are consistent with constructionist accounts of emotion that propose concepts as a key mechanism underlying individual differences in emotional experience, physiological regulation, and physical health.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

The ability to learn new emotion concepts is adaptive and socially valuable as it communicates culturally held understandings about values, goals, and experiences. Yet, little work has examined the underlying mechanisms that allow for new emotion concepts and words to be integrated into the conceptual system. One such mechanism may be conceptual combination, or the ability to form novel concepts by dynamically combining previously acquired conceptual knowledge. In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the electrophysiological correlates of novel emotion concept acquisition via conceptual combination. Participants were briefly trained on 30 novel emotion combinations, each consisting of two English emotion words (the components; e.g., "sadness + fatigue") and a pseudoword (the target; e.g., "despip"). Participants then completed a semantic congruency task while ERPs were recorded. On each trial, two components were presented serially, followed by a target; participants judged whether the target was a valid combination of the preceding components. Targets could be correct or incorrect trained pseudowords, or new untrained pseudowords. Furthermore, components could be presented in reversed order (e.g., "fatigue" then "sadness") or as synonyms (e.g., "exhaustion" for "fatigue"). Consistent with our main hypotheses, we found a main effect of target, such that the correct combinations showed reduced N400 amplitudes when compared to both incorrect and untrained pseudowords. Critically, this effect held regardless of how the preceding components were presented, suggesting deeper semantic learning. These results extend prior findings on conceptual combination and novel word learning, and are congruent with predictive processing accounts of brain function.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can lead to multiple deleterious outcomes and has negative, sometimes debilitating, impacts on general functioning of those affected. This systematic review of 26 articles evaluates the existing literature on social functioning outcomes used in PTSD research, the association between PTSD and social functioning, and the impact of interventions for PTSD on social functioning. A review of 26 articles using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines for systematic reviews showed that PTSD was associated with significant impairment in global social functioning. This review also reveals the need for both standardized definitions and better assessment methods to operationalize social functioning and improve our ability to compare findings across studies. The literature also suggests that some evidence-based treatments for PTSD improve social functioning despite not explicitly targeting social functioning in the treatment. The findings of this review suggest that there are ample opportunities for improving both research and interventions to improve global social functioning in PTSD.

Expertise refers to outstanding skill or ability in a particular domain. In the domain of emotion, expertise refers to the observation that some people are better at a range of competencies related to understanding and experiencing emotions, and these competencies may help them lead healthier lives. These individual differences are represented by multiple constructs including emotional awareness, emotional clarity, emotional complexity, emotional granularity, and emotional intelligence. These constructs derive from different theoretical perspectives, highlight different competencies, and are operationalized and measured in different ways. The full set of relationships between these constructs has not yet been considered, hindering scientific progress and the translation of findings to aid mental and physical well-being. In this article, we use a scoping review procedure to integrate these constructs within a shared conceptual space. Scoping reviews provide a principled means of synthesizing large and diverse literature in a transparent fashion, enabling the identification of similarities as well as gaps and inconsistencies across constructs. Using domain-general accounts of expertise as a guide, we build a unifying framework for expertise in emotion and apply this to constructs that describe how people understand and experience their own emotions. Our approach offers opportunities to identify potential mechanisms of expertise in emotion, encouraging future research on those mechanisms and on educational or clinical interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotional granularity describes an individual’s ability to create instances of emotion that are diverse and context-specific. Considerable evidence suggests that higher emotional granularity is a protective factor for mental and physical well-being. In the present study, we examined emotional granularity using a network analytic approach that produced multi-dimensional, time-varying measures. Individuals with higher granularity exhibited person-specific emotion networks that were less dense, comprised of a greater number of communities of emotions, and organized by a greater diversity of connections. Individuals with higher granularity also exhibited greater network change over time. Network measures of emotional granularity predicted self-reported anxiety and depression, even when controlling for other variables known to be associated with mood symptoms, such as self-reported alexithymia and emotional reactivity. Taken together, these findings serve as a proof-of-concept demonstration of the efficiency of network analysis for describing the dynamic structure of emotional experience.